The first thing Ethan Haugen did as he emerged from the confines of “isolation pod 5” was duck inside the nearest dining hall.
After nearly two weeks inside a beige-and-black travel trailer, large enough to take about six strides from one end to the other, the Southern Methodist University freshman wanted space to think. Sitting alone, the light from outdoors gleaming into the Crum Center, he pushed back his blond hair and let the last 14 days wash over him.
This trip to the dining hall was the first time he had broken the monotony of coronavirus isolation — no more calls from contact tracers or health questionnaires.
“It is weird, I will say that,” Haugen said, reflecting on life in isolation. “The one thing I will say is it is just boring. That is how I would really describe it.”
A makeshift trailer park was created on SMU’s campus in July, nestled between an old fraternity house and a renovated undergraduate residence hall. The isolation pods were the university’s solution to accommodate students in quarantine while the novel coronavirus continues to be in play.
Some universities have designated residential halls or off-campus housing for students who test positive for the coronavirus. SMU has those too. But, for about 10% of those in isolation beds, the university has set up the trailers to recover, rest and, eventually, return to campus life.
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Life inside this eerily quiet enclave takes on the feeling of seclusion both by design and nature. People bustle past the trailers, entrapped by a tarped chain link fence, but inside the camp is still.
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Haugen, 18, moved into his isolation pod on Sept. 15. He’s not sure how he contracted COVID-19, but he started feeling sick with a sore throat and achiness in early September. After talking with a friend, he decided to get tested at the campus health center.
Three days later, after his test came back positive, he was contacted by the residential life office and assigned his new home for the next two weeks.
From that point, his contact with the outside world was limited.
His meals were placed in a drop box just 2 feet from his trailer at 4 p.m. Garbage was separated by isolation pods and thrown out at separate times. Even move in was done without seeing another person.
Haugen received an email with a password to a mailbox. Inside the box was a key to the pod. As he moved in, he stuffed a few of his things into his trailer quietly and without so much as a wave from a fellow trailer neighbor.
The university provides some essentials, such as meals, toilet paper, bath towels, paper towels and bedding.
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The inside of the trailer is “nicer than a dorm,” Haugen said. They are all equipped with a stove, fridge and a shower. A TV adorns one of the walls and a bed occupies the side space of the trailer.
Cleaning supplies are prominent. The hope is, according to a university email sent to Haugen, that students will clean as they go before the deep clean when an occupant moves out.
Most of the day, Haugen said, he shuffled between Zoom classes and homework. That part was normal. And the food provided was surprisingly good, he said.
The real struggle, though, was finding the substitute for any connection that would normally occur living with a roommate and in a dorm. In college isolation, battling the mental health aspects are just as potent as the physical ailments of the coronavirus.
“There is a lot of anxiety, uncertainty and no clear finish line,” said Denise Paquette Boots, an associate dean of undergraduate education at University of Texas at Dallas and an expert on mental health. “It is a compounding issue and isolation really exacerbates all of it … Self care is the most important thing right now.”
Haugen felt this. He filled his off hours by playing the hit video game League of Legends with his friends from his hometown online, a habit he picked up back in March when coronavirus began. He FaceTimed routinely with his family, who were half checking up on him and half intrigued to find out what life is like in a college coronavirus isolation pod.
Whenever he really needed a break, he ordered off-campus food from delivery services. As an allowed activity in quarantine, it was a change of pace.
“Not only have my parents and my siblings been calling and texting, but also my grandparents and other family,” Haugen said just before leaving isolation. “That has been getting me through a little bit. It has been really helpful.”
He even made a friend in quarantine. A student who lives down the hall from him also tested positive for the virus and went into quarantine the same day. They fired off text messages during downtime to keep themselves distracted.
“We were just talking about how to connect the sound system in the pod. At one point, we were joking about creating a playlist and blasting it at the same time,” Haugen said. “We could create a rave in the parking lot.”
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SMU has outlets for those who are struggling with mental health in this setup with a counselor on call 24/7, said Greg Ramirez, the associate director of communication at SMU. A contact tracer is supposed to call to check on students in isolation daily. Haugen said the frequency of the calls dropped off to once every two to three days once his symptoms started to fade.
For Haugen, the stay in isolation ended as quietly as it started. He was not tested again. The official SMU website says occupants can leave isolation 10 days after they become symptom-free, all self-reported on an online questionnaire.
“Some of the things I didn’t expect, but it (wasn’t) bad there at all,” Haugen said.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Communities Foundation of Texas, The Meadows Foundation, The Dallas Foundation, Southern Methodist University, Todd A. Williams Family Foundation, The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, and the Solutions Journalism Network. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.
